WAILUKU – (RealEstateRama) — The County of Maui, the Governor’s Office, the Realtors Association of Maui along with a coalition of social service agencies, have announced a promotional program to encourage property owners and property managers to make more dwellings available to those needing housing the most.
The central feature of this effort will be a Landlord Summit to be held at the Maui Beach Hotel in Kahului on June 20 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“We need more housing for the housing-challenged members of our community, so we are reaching out to property owners and property managers in an attempt to find those rooms, ohanas, apartments or houses that have been so far, held out of the rental pool. They are so needed,” said County Housing and Human Concerns Director Carol Reimann said. “We have people, including families, who have the assistance necessary to pay market-rate rents, but still cannot find a place to live. The purpose of the Landlord Summit is to help us fix that problem.”
The Maui Landlord Summit coalition is following a pattern that was successfully used in Honolulu and on the Big Island to reach out to property owners who may have a rental dwelling that they could offer to their neighbors who are in need of shelter. Increasingly, as Maui’s housing crisis deepens, even residents with Section 8 Housing assistance vouchers or other support services cannot find places to rent.
The idea of the Landlord Summit is to gather the agencies, which prove financial support and other services for housing-challenged residents, in the same room with landlords who could potentially open doors to rentals. The agencies will explain their services and answer landlord’s questions about the services that would support their decision to rent.
The Summit event is underwritten by a grant from the National Association of Realtors and the Realtors Association of Maui. Agencies participating include: The Office of the Governor, Mayor Alan Arakawa, Maui County’s Section 8 Program, Department of Veteran Affairs, Ka Hale A Ke Ola Homeless Resource Centers, Family Life Center, Catholic Charities, Mental Health Kokua, Steadfast Housing, and the Realtors Association of Maui. Lunch is included in the event.
To register for the Maui Landlord Summit, you should be a property owner or a representative of a property owner who could potentially offer a dwelling for rent. Please call 270-7805 or email director.hhc (at) mauicounty (dot) gov to register or for further information. Deadline to register is June 15, 2016.
